The Nobles of Bloodgulch
by twice the trouble
Summary: The Noble team did not get peace after the Fall of Reach. Just as the Bloodgulch Crew didn't have any before they were sent to the canyon. In fact, their stories are not as different as one would think. one-shot. premise.


Hey everyone. Here's a new sort-of story of mine I've been editing for the past month or two. It's more like a creative premise to a whole thing was actually an idea my brother had that kinda just, stuck. I know it's quite far fetched but I thought it was an interesting take on the RvB story itself. I will not be continuing it for several reasons. The first being, I don't have the time. I already have my hands full with my current story since I'm attempting to keep up with the once a week posting schedule.

Second, I just don't have a story for it. I have the characters and everything but no conflict that would make it any different from the orrigional series. Therefore, if anyone likes this enough to create a story for it, be my guest. Just PM me so I know and can let my other reader's know.

So, without further to do,

Hope you enjoy,

Trouble 1

ps. I do not own Noble Team nor the Bloodgulch crew. Wish I did, but I don't. My spelling and grammar are also pretty bad, so if I didn't pick up all of them I'm sorry.  
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Mission log

March 21, 2554

Warrant Officer Jun –A266

To whom it may concern,

I'm cutting straight to the chase here. I've discovered something about Project Freelancer. Something horribly wrong. Through asking around and my own personal observation I found out what they're doing, but have no means of proving it, not without hurting my team.

Project Freelancer is no longer simply experimenting with suited soldiers and AI's. They are, in fact, scavenging among the wreckage that the UNSC leaves in their wake. Every "loss" we cut, they pick up, some of which included my old coworkers, those once known as the Noble team. Not only this, but when they found they couldn't use them, they were abandoned, thrown away into an empty canyon called Bloodgulch.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. After the UNSC left them all for dead, the Director sent in several agents to retrieve what they could, even our soldiers, whether they're alive or dead. Apparently the only members of my team to have actually died on Reach were Commander Carter-A254, and Lieutenant Commander Catherine-B320. The other three survived one way or another. But, just because they were dead didn't mean they would be left alone.

One of the Freelancer scientists got it in his head that creating AIs out of their minds then placing them each into a comatose body would, essentially, bring them back to life. Unfortunately in their rush they didn't bother to check the state of the mind they were using. It wasn't until they had transplanted the two AIs that they realized their mistake.

During the pelican crash, several sections of Carter's mind had been destroyed. One of which housed his ambitions, making it so that when he woke, he was horribly difficult to motivate. He was now, for lack of a better term, lazy.

He was a poor excuse of a soldier after that, one that wanted nothing to do with battle or war, but what happened to Kat's mental clone had to be worse. Kat's brain was a lot more damaged than Carter's due to the needle round. It had shorted out of her mind, causing the AI clone to be, well, an idiot, not worthy of being called a "clone."

Neither of them knew who they used to be, or even what they were. Which, I suppose is a good thing. It's not like it bothered them anyways. At one point they both disappeared from their rooms, only to be found a few hours later in the kitchen, trying to empty the food reserves. In that time the pair had created a unique and absurd history for themselves, with names and everything. They had decided that they were siblings whose mother was a fat, bearded lady who had ran away to the circus without them. Apparently his name was now Dexter Grif while she was just to be called Sister.

After that incident, the newly named Grif was sent away, while they kept Sister a little longer to figure out what went wrong. As of right now, I think she's still in their custody but she will no doubt join her "brother" soon enough.

While they were doing that, the Director had another group of scientists try the experiment again. They didn't bother with Kat, instead deciding to focus on Carter. They did another map of my old commander's mind. Of course, even mapping a second time was not going to remove the gaps, so he had the scientists map the parts the future AI was missing from his own mind.

The AI that was created was brilliant. It had all the tactical training of a Spartan with the Director's own ambitions hardwired in. Unfortunately, even though he was a success, making him a soldier wouldn't be possible. Carter's hand-eye coordination had been damaged as well, making it one of the parts that were copied from the Director. Unfortunately, he was no soldier so it was sure that if this AI ever shot a weapon, he'd most surely miss.

Therefore he abandoned that plan, deciding to use this AI for his experiments with his agents, and giving him the name Alpha. But when Alpha was created, another came into being as well.

She was no more than byproduct, a shadow of a memory, but not the memory the Director though she was. He assumed because some of his mind was used for this experiment, that this new AI was a copy of his lost love, a dead woman named Allison. He is not completely correct.

Yes, there are aspects of that woman, mostly in personality and fighting style. But I've met her and I can tell you for sure, that's not all that's there. I've seen her take apart a tank and put it back together, I've heard her sometimes slip into a Slavic accent when talking to a machine, and the amount of curiosity she shows when she thinks no one's looking is something I've only seen on one other person before.

So I agree that this woman is Allison, but she is also Kat.

I'm not exactly sure how that works, to be honest. I'm going to assume that the will to have Allison back was inherited from the Director, so he created her. But, having only a small part of the Director's mind, he must not have enough memories to construct her, so he used the few he had of Kat to finish.

But the Director refused to see this, opting only to see his beloved in the new AI's constructs. He gave her a new name, Beta, to match Alpha. But he also gave her a new body as well as a spot in his forces. After proving her strength, she earned the codename Texas, and has went as Tex ever since.

What they did to the Alpha AI after that is highly confidential. Many of the higher ranking people in Freelancer don't even know. All I know is that they did something to him, something that made him forget everything he already knew. And when they were done, they cast him aside, like the others.

This all must sound pretty unbelievable to you, like a new age fairy tale, but it's not. I know all this to be true. But it doesn't end there. The rest of my team, though still living, did not avoid such treatment, even Jorge was affected.

Chief Warrant Officer Jorge-052 should have died in that incident, the slip space drive should have jettisoned him into nowhere. But he lived, thrown through slip space to a remote region of the galaxy people rarely visit. He spent two days floating around aimlessly, with only enough air for one.

The _Mother of Invention_ happened to be in that particular corner of space about then and decided to pick him up. They had the doctors take a look at him and they found that the only reason he was alive was because the trip through slip space ended up slowing down his vitals well below a normal level. This was the only reason he didn't suffocate the day before.

But, both instances did, in fact, leave their toll. When he gained consciousness a few days later, he had no idea who he was. He couldn't remember his past and could barely figure out what was happening in the present. His brain had been damaged in those events, and it was not repairable.

While the doctors were testing him, someone asked them about his mental progress. How well could he interpret what was going on. One of the smart ass ones said that "if he was a train car, he'd be the caboose. The last one at the station, if he even got there at all." All he got from that were the words "He was Caboose."

He adopted that as his name, ignoring everyone that tried to tell him differently. They eventually gave up, not bothering to change his mind when he took the name of one of his nurses as well. They were barely able to convince him that it was pronounced "Michael" and not "Michelle."

After failing to get him to recognize his own, original name, they decided to give it back to him as a middle name. They never did tell him, only saying to him that he was now Private Michael J. Caboose. I don't believe he even wondered what the "J" stood for.

They kept him longer than the others, only putting him out to pasture relatively recently. They wanted to make sure there was no way that he could be useful before getting rid of him.

Even though he's nothing like he used to be, it might be better for him this way. Yes, he's no more than an ignorant child, but he's at least a happy one. Which is better than I can say for most of my team.

As far as I know, Warrant Officer Emile-A239 and Lieutenant B312, also known as Noble Six, still remember what happened. And, whatever it was that went on down there, it traumatized them, changing their personalities drastically. The pair were broken, even though Spartans aren't supposed to be able to break like that.

I don't know why it happened, maybe it was because the Freelancers didn't know what they were dealing with when they took them on. Or maybe the end of Reach was so bad, that they broke along with the planet. I don't know, and I'm not going to pretend I do.

Whatever happened to Six, it made him paranoid and anxious a lot of the time. He became obsessed with order and often distracted himself with computers. But, no matter what he tried, he was still a soldier at heart. He still followed orders whether he believed in their usefulness or not, making him seem like a kiss ass.

They were able to put him on the field for a bit but soon found that it wasn't going to work. He had begun to replace those directly above him in the chain of command with that of the father he couldn't remember. Those same superiors came to their higher ups complaining about him, saying that not only was his anxiousness making him too unreliable, but he was vying for their attention so much that it was risking the mission more times than not.

It was not long after that he was shipped away as well, after finding that he, indeed, could not be fixed. No matter how hard they tried, he just wasn't fit for the battlefield anymore.

I'm not sure how he got the name Richard Simmons, but I'm pretty sure it was a cover he was given so the UNSC wouldn't find him. It doesn't sound like a name he would have come up with on his own, then again, I only knew Six for about a month, so anything's possible.

I'm pretty sure that's how Emile got his new name as well. After all, I doubt someone like him would have chosen a name like Lavernius Tucker if they had a choice.

Again, I'm not sure how he became like he is now. The first few weeks he was in the Freelancer hospital, he was silent. He didn't interact with anyone, no matter what was said to him. I heard that he seemed almost depressed, which he probably was, or at least angry at them. From his perspective they probably robbed him of the heroic death his teammates presumably got.

At that point he started refusing treatment for his wounds, not accepting the food they gave him. He just didn't care anymore.

They tried to fix this by pumping him full of anti-depressants, which seemed to mend the problem. He was eating, accepting treatment, even talking with the nurses. So they decided, since he'd most likely be on the battlefield for long periods of time, trying to keep him on such a regiment probably wasn't the best idea. They needed a more permanent solution.

This solution came in the form of an experimental procedure that altered something in the mind. It was supposed to make him like he used to be, but it didn't work like it was supposed to.

After the procedure, he was different, even from how he used to be. He was just too light hearted. He had trouble taking anything seriously, even when he wanted to. Half the time, he was more interested in hitting on the nurses than anything. He was really bad at it but that didn't seem to deter him much.

But he wasn't all gone, which made the whole situation even worse. Most of the time he was the stereotypical ladies' man-wanna be, but things changed when he was alone. During these times he almost looks like he's fighting with himself, mentally dueling with this new personality. I think knows how he should be and how drastically different he is compared to it. I believe that these differences are confusing him, making him struggle to figure out which personality is the real one.

Regardless of his mental struggle, the fact that he wouldn't be able to focus on the battlefield, made him what they considered a failure. So they cast him away alongside Six. They were sure to put them on opposite sides of the canyon to be sure they never found out about their similar pasts. After all, if that were to happen, they would be able to put things together far too quickly for the Director's liking.

I haven't been able to figure out what the deal is with the man only called Sarg. I think he might be an illegal clone of one of the other Spartans, but I can't be sure. All I know is that there's something strange with his story as well. I'll have to figure out how to get ahold of their files later on.

But, for now, keeping an eye on all of them is my first priority. Noble team was the closest thing I had to a family. They helped me when I needed it, now I have to help them, even if I had to go AWOL to do so.

In order for no one to know what I'm doing, I had to create a completely different persona. I changed my name, I act differently, I even abandoned my sniper, which was the hardest part for me.

I know no one will see this journal until I'm done and have the proof I need. I'm even going to keep it disguised and hidden so no one else in the canyon sees it either. I just hope that the proof I find will be enough to lock these criminals away for good, yet not hurt what's left of my team in the process.

Warrant Officer Jun –A266

or, I guess I should say,

 _With Love,_

 _Private Franklin Delano Donut_


End file.
